where-2
Explanation
The Joke
The comic shows a person sitting at a computer, apparently working on a "Where's Waldo?" book (or helping a robot/AI with one). A robotic or computerized voice declares: "He's not here. I've scanned every page repeatedly." The human responds in exasperation: "What do you mean? He's right there, by God! Right there!" The caption below reveals: "Fun fact: There is no Waldo in any of those books. After enough frustration, you begin to hallucinate."
The comic presents two layers of misdirection. On the surface, it seems like a joke about a computer or robot being unable to find Waldo despite scanning every page -- the classic "AI can't do what humans find easy" gag. But the caption flips everything: the machine is actually correct, and there never was a Waldo. The human who insists they can see him is the one who is wrong, having hallucinated Waldo into existence through sheer determination and frustration.
The Humor
The humor works through the double reversal. The reader initially sides with the frustrated human against the apparently incompetent machine, only to learn that the machine was right all along and the human is experiencing a pattern-recognition hallucination. This taps into the real psychological phenomenon of pareidolia -- seeing meaningful patterns where none exist -- and applies it to the universally shared experience of searching for Waldo. There is also a darker philosophical undertone: perhaps our confidence that we have "found" something is sometimes just our brains manufacturing certainty out of frustration.
References
"Where's Waldo?" (known as "Where's Wally?" in the UK) is a series of puzzle books by Martin Handford where readers must find a small, striped-shirt-wearing character hidden in densely illustrated crowd scenes. The comic's premise that Waldo was never actually there plays on the notorious difficulty of these puzzles.